Merck announced that the PrintOLED project successfully concluded. During the project, the partners investigate several technologies (such as gravure, inkjet printing, slot-die coating and others) and were able to demonstrated OLEDs with homogeneously coated active areas of 10 cm2 and 27 cm2 by classic gravure printing and slot die coating (at least two of the layers were processed from solution).
Merck says that printing two organic layers one on top of the other was a major challenge. The partners achieved significant improvements with specific material sequences. They say that they managed to print with speeds of up to 3 m/s semiconducting OLED layers with a homogeneity meeting the quality standards of industrial-scale OLED production. The knowledge was also applied to OPV and sDSC solar cells.
The project was led by Merck, and the other partners were BASF, OSRAM, Philips, the Karlsruhe Institute for Technology, the Technical University of Braunschweig, the Technical University of Darmstadt and Heidelberger Druckmaschinen. The project received around â¬5 million in funding from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).
